THE BAHAMA ISLANDS 433 



freely expressed the slaveholders' opinion of the anti-slavery party in the 

 mother country. After an exhaustive argument of the whole question to him 

 they continued as follows : " With all due respect to Your Excellency's mes- 

 sage, this Colony has already felt too deeply the baneful effect of the abolition 

 influence in various ways not to regard with additional dread every new approach 

 of that party to the pestilential dominion they are laboring to establish over 

 the whole West Indies. Being persuaded that that party has visionary objects 

 the House must declare that it will not be the arbiter of the ruin of the 

 Bahamas." 



The Wylly Affair. 



This was the state of affairs and of opinion in the Colony, when an inci- 

 dent occurred which aroused such an excited state of feeling, involving the 

 legislature and the whole local government in such difficulties that the pos- 

 sibility of legislation on the important matter of registration of the slaves 

 was precluded for a term of four years. 



In the year 1809 a female domestic slave, named Sue, was brought to 

 Nassau from the State of Georgia. She was kept at Nassau until 1816. In 

 the latter year her master came to Nassau, accompanied by a male slave, named 

 Sandy, and attempted on his return to take the two slaves, together with an 

 infant child of the former, back to Georgia with him." The slaves absconded, 

 were seized and imprisoned to await the day of their owner's departure. At- 

 torney-General Wylly seized upon them, and prosecuted them on the ground of 

 unlawful importation. Sandy and the child were restored to their owner, but 

 Sue was condemned on an allegation that she had been offered for sale.'" 



The local House of Assembly, with its accustomed diligence in taking 

 account of everything in connection with the government of the Colony, ob- 

 jected to the conduct of the Attorney-General."' It appeared that the Attorney- 

 General had given a written opinion that, under the imperial statute of the 

 year 1806 regarding the removal of slaves from any part of the British do- 

 minions, slaves brought into the Colony might be sold there, or freely taken 

 away, according to the will of the owner. His new opinion, involving the use 

 of license and bond for removals under the same act, was odious to the mem- 

 bers of the House."* A report gained currency that the Attorney-General 



^' H. v., 1816-17, p. 143. 



-** hoc. cit. 



^' hoc. cit., p. 153. 



^' H. v., 1816-17, pp. 153-156. 



28 



